page_title: Hans Speidel
section_title: 20 July Plot
hierarchical_section_title: Hans Speidel / Second World War / 20 July Plot
context_page_description: Hans Speidel was a Wehrmacht general during the Second World War and the Cold War, who served as Supreme Commander of the NATO ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963.
  Speidel served as Generalleutnant and chief of staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during the Second World War. Speidel was a Mussolini-style fascist and nationalist who agreed with the Nazi invasions and territorial aspects of the Nazi regime's policies, but like Benito Mussolini, strongly disagreed with their racial policies. This led him to participate in the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler, after which he was jailed by the Gestapo. At the end of the war, he escaped from Nazi prison and went into hiding.
  During the early Cold War, Speidel emerged as one of the leading German military figures, and played a key role in German rearmament and integration into NATO. He is thus regarded as one of the founders of the Bundeswehr. He was the first officer to be promoted to full General in West Germany and served as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe from 1957 to 1963, with headquarters at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris.
context_section_description: Speidel, a professional soldier and nationalist conservative, agreed with those aspects of Hitler's policy that returned Germany to its place as a world power, but disagreed with the Nazis' racial policies. He was involved in the 20 July Plot to kill Hitler and had been delegated by anti-Hitler forces to recruit Rommel for the conspiracy, which he had cautiously begun to do prior to Rommel's injury in a British strafing attack on 17 July 1944. Speidel managed to become Rommel's confidant, purely by chance: Lucie Rommel, after having an argument with the wife of Alfred Gause (Rommel's then Chief-of-Staff) about who had the more honourable place at a wedding, decided to not only evict the Gause couple out of her house but to order her husband to dismiss Alfred Gause as well. Rommel chose Speidel, a fellow Swabian, as his new Chief-of-Staff.
  Following the attempt the Gestapo rounded up, tortured and executed some five thousand Germans, including many high-ranking officers. Speidel's involvement was suspected by the Gestapo, and he was arrested on 7 September 1944. Rommel, in his final letter to Hitler of 1 October 1944, appealed for Speidel's release, but received no answer. Speidel appeared before an Army court of honour. According to an affidavit left by Heinz Guderian and Heinrich Kirchheim, during interrogation he blurted out Rommel's name. Maurice Remy comments that Speidel's testament did not truly betray Rommel, although Speidel probably blamed himself until his death for his revered Field Marshal's fate afterwards. Unknown to Speidel though, his statement offered nothing new or startling to the interrogators, who had already obtained from other co-conspirators the information that Rommel not only knew but agreed with the assassination. Gerd von Rundstedt, Heinz Guderian and Wilhelm Keitel refused to expel him from the German Army. Thus he was not compelled to appear before Roland Freisler's People's Court, which would have been a death sentence. He was jailed for seven months by the Gestapo. As Allied forces approached the location where he was held, he slipped from his captors and went into hiding. He was freed by French troops on 29 April 1945.
caption: Speidel with Erwin Rommel, April 1944
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